for what lies beyond their power and is not their own doing, but is instead like their complexion, height, or shortness. Rather, He would be punishing them for His own action upon them. He would, in reality, be the one performing their evil deeds and the one punishing them for those deeds. Yet the praise due to Him in this regard utterly precludes such a notion and most emphatically rules it out. Exalted far above this is He to whom all praise belongs! Rather, He punishes them only for their own actions, which they truly performed. These are their actions, not His. His actions are nothing but justice, benevolence, and goodness.

Second, affirming His mercy and His being the Most Merciful rules this out. These two things can never coexist: that He should be the Most Merciful, the Ever-Merciful, yet punish a servant for something beyond his power and not of his own doing; indeed, that He should charge him with what he cannot bear and has absolutely no power to do, then punish him for it. Is this not the very opposite of mercy, negating and nullifying it? Can anyone reasonably conceive of this coexisting with full and perfect mercy in one and the same being?

Third, worship and seeking help are affirmed as their acts and attributed to them in their words:

“We worship and we seek help.”

This attribution is literal, not figurative. Allah cannot be described as performing the worship and seeking of help that are His servants’ actions. Rather, it is truly the servant who worships and seeks help, while Allah is the One worshipped and the One whose help is sought.

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How it refutes those who hold that He acts by the necessity of His essence rather than through choice and will, and establishes that He, glorified is He, acts by choice

This is shown in several ways:

First, by affirming the praise due to Him. How can He be praised for something whose existence He did not choose and which does not proceed from His will and action? Can water be praised for its effects and what it necessarily produces?